1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a bracket for securing cables. More particularly, these apparatuses relate to a cable-tie down bracket for anchoring a cable or its constituent members to a tie down region within an enclosure.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the need to provide high speed data communications, telecommunications and CATV service providers are switching from twisted pair, CAT-5/6, and coaxial cables to fiber optic cables for their communications backbone, for residential users, and for business users. Based on common industry practices, most telecommunications and CATV service providers run fiber optic feeder cables to an enclosure and re-route optical fibers to smaller distribution cables. In many cases, these feeder and distribution cables are routed to an enclosure using a cable duct which serves to protect the cable and facilitate routing within a structure (residence, multi-dwelling unit, business, etc).
An example of such an enclosure box can be found in PCT Application No. PCT/US2010/052673 (the '673 application), the contents of which are incorporated herein in its entirety. An exemplary aspect of the '673 application is that a cable port mounting plate is removably attached to the internal chassis and the enclosure box. The cable port mounting plate allows entry and exit of cables into the enclosure after which these the cables may be separated into the respective constituents. The '673 application allows a designer to use a variety of configurations for the cable port mounting plate.
Based on common industry practice, cables entering an enclosure are strain relieved within the enclosure by anchoring the cable's outer jacket or the cable's strength members to a tie down region within the enclosure. In order to reduce the manufacturing complexity of the enclosure, the tie down region of the enclosure in typically arranged in a same plane as the enclosures input and output ports, and typically arranged in a side-by-side orientation. Other cable tie down configurations are possible but are complex to manufacture and typically expensive.
FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a perspective view of an enclosure box in which an input cable 101 is anchored to a tie-down region 104 using the central strength members 103. The optical fiber 102 is pulled from the cable and fed to other devices. For example, the optical fiber 102 may be fed to a splice tray, an adapter, etc. or coiled and stored within the enclosure for future splicing needs. Typically the feeder/input cable enters the enclosure from the bottom left side of the unit thru the grommets or pipe adapters. Once the cable is brought inside of the enclosure the outer jacket is removed from the cable exposing the fiber bundle(s) and the central strength member. The central strength member is trimmed to the appropriate length needed and is secured as previously mentioned. The fiber bundle is typically routed in a clockwise direction in a racetrack shape/configuration around the inside of the slack storage region of the enclosure and is fed thru/inserted inside of the cable management rings. Typically several revolutions of the cable are made in order to provide sufficient slack length for future splicing needs. At this point one or more individual fibers are separated from the bundle and are routed and spliced to pigtails, jumpers or other fibers within the enclosure and/or splice tray.
The cable 101 is typically anchored to the tie-down region 104 using a cable tie or a hose clamp. In some cases the cable strength member is a multifilament Kevlar/other high performance fiber bundle as opposed to a pultruded fiberglass rod. When this is the case these central strength fibers are wrapped around the cable management bracket and secured typically with a tie knot. As seen from FIG. 1B, the cable may enter the enclosure from a hole 105. A plurality of these holes are provided at the base of the enclosure box. However, designers may wish to use different configurations of the entry holes 105 in which the holes 105 may not be in the same plane as each other. For example, FIG. 3C of the '673 application provides a cable port mounting plate 201 in which the holes 205 are not in the same plane.
If the entry holes 105 in FIG. 1A are not on the same horizontal plane as the cable tie-down region 104, the cable 101 has to be bent and the strength members 103 have to be pulled further down to secure them with the tie-down region. The central strength members are stiff and it may be difficult to route the strength members such that they can reach the tie-down region 104.
Therefore, there is a need for a more flexible design for anchoring the incoming cables such that the design can easily adapt to varying configurations of the input cable holes.